Inside The Bills

Chan Gailey’s passing attack is predicated on timing and getting the ball out quick. With the quick thinking Ryan Fitzpatrick this often leads to a high completion percentage. That hasn’t happened collectively over the course of the season, but last week Fitz was 16-26 passing (61.5%), which isn’t great, but an improvement over his season completion percentage to date (58.3%). The stat crunchers and film reviewers at Pro Football Focus revealed an interesting statistic concerning Fitzpatrick and the timing passing game.

PFF found through film review that Fitzpatrick has an Accuracy Percentage of 72.0% when he holds onto the ball for 2.5 seconds or less. When he holds it for 2.6 seconds or more, it drops to 56.7%. The 15.3% difference is the third highest in the league.

PFF did not break down the number of plays in which he holds onto the ball for more or less than 2.5 seconds, and it’s unclear whether or not defenses have been more effective in taking away his first read this season. But the difference is noteworthy and speaks to the importance of the timing of Buffalo’s passing game, knowing his current completion percentage for the season (58.3%) is closer to the latter figure provided by PFF.

Cincinnati’s Andy Dalton is the quickest at getting the ball out of his hand in the league right now per PFF taking an average of 2.3 seconds between his snap and his pass release.